Nucleic acid amplification reactions, such as polymerase chain reaction (PCR), are generally template-dependent reactions in which a desired nucleic acid sequence is amplified by treating separate complementary strands of a target nucleic acid with an excess of two oligonucleotide primers. The primers are extended to form complementary primer extension products which act as templates for synthesizing the desired nucleic acid sequence. In such processes, the nucleic acid sequence between the primers on the respective DNA strands is selectively amplified. However, the specificity of a nucleic acid amplification reaction can be negatively affected by a number of factors.